XtreemOS - Building and Promoting a Linux-based Operating System to Support Virtual Organizations for Next Generation Grids

The overall objective of the XtreemOS project is the design, implementation, evaluation and distribution of an open source Grid operating system (named XtreemOS) with native support for virtual organizations (VO) and capable of running on a wide range of underlying platforms, from clusters to mobiles.

The approach we propose in this project is to investigate the construction of a new Grid OS, XtreemOS, based on the existing general purpose OS Linux. A set of system services, extending those found in the traditional Linux, will provide users with all the Grid capabilities associated with current Grid middleware, but fully integrated into the OS. The underlying Linux will be extended as needed to support VOs spanning across many machines and to provide appropriate interfaces to the Grid OS services.

The data management work package led by ZIB is aiming to develop a Grid data management component that supports (1) efficient location-independent data access, (2) advanced metadata capabilities like attribute-based access and data dependency tracking, (3) autonomous data management with self-organized replication and distribution. These three data services will provide the basis for the Grid File Service (GridFS) and the Grid Object Management (GOM). To support legacy applications, POSIX-like interfaces will be implemented.